It has become relatively common practice to use deflectable or break-away basketball goals in higher grade and professional basketball leagues. These are typified in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,676,503, 4,534,556, 4,365,802 and 4,111,420. The deflectable basketball goals have a NORMAL USE position in which their ring assembly is substantially horizontal and a DEFLECTED POSITION wherein the ring assembly is deflected downwardly up to about 200 mm measured at the free end of the ring assembly. The purpose of the deflection is to reduce the strain placed upon a basketball backboard to which the deflectable basketball goal is attached.
Early in the development of the game of basketball is was rare for players to reach the ring assembly of the basketball goals. As time passed and players developed their height and skill they started to make contact with the rang assembly. Such contact was penalised by a technical foul so as to discourage the contact and thereby protect the ring assembly and the basketball backboard.
Then ring assemblies were modified to pivot down to a non-use position if struck with greater than a predetermined force--and so was developed the "break-away" basketball goal. The problem of the break-away basketball goal was that it had to be manually reset which delayed play and detracted from the speed of the basketball game. Hence, designers created break-away basket ball goals which automatically reset once the load was removed. Also, the spectators began to expect players to make contact with the basketball ring in what has become known as a "slam dunk".
In the past few years players have placed increasing loads on basketball goals by the use of the slam dunk. Typically, a slam dunk, as now performed, can place a load of about 150 kg or more onto the ring assembly of the basketball goal. Many of the basketball goals developed in the last 15 years are simply not capable of sustaining such a load and can not protect the basketball backboard from the effect of the impact of that load even though they were developed with the protection of the basketball backboard in mind. For example, the basketball goals of U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,111,420, 4,365,802 and 4,534,556 are not suited to accommodate such loads--even if heavier gauge springs were used. The reason for this is that these basketball goals were not designed with such loads in mind, so the basketball goals tend to fail prematurely and the basketball backboards receive too little protection from the effects of such loads.
The basketball goal of U.S. 4,111,420 has the disadvantage that a bolt upon which a return spring is mounted must pivot at its connection to a bracket pivoted to the basketball backboard. This has the effect of shortening the life of the bolt, causing it to wear irregularly and causing an uneven rate and direction of return of its basketball ring from the deflected position to the normal use position.
This problem is attempted to be overcome in U.S. Pat. No. 4,365,802 by using a cable in place of the bolt. However, the structure of U.S. Pat. No. 4,365,802 can not be made sufficiently robust to cope with the amount of load that basketball players now place on basketball goals.
In U.S. 4,534,556 the bolt wear problem is attempted to be overcome by using a curved-belt carrying a compression spring or the use of a tension spring which does not have a guiding bolt. The former has the disadvantage that the spring must be very stiff to absorb the load and hence tends to wear against the curved surface of the bolt. The latter has the disadvantage that the mounting for the goal must pass through or beneath the basketball backboard and does not comply with international regulations concerning basketball goals.
In U.S. 4,676,503 a large number of embodiments of break-away basketball goals are disclosed, each of which fail to address the problems of coping with the large loads to which basketball goals are now subjected.
Also, a further problem is that prior art deflectable basketball backboards tend wear with use and their pivot mechanisms become sloppy which causes a change overtime in the characteristics of the basketball goal in relation to "lip out" or rejection of a basketball. Typically, conventional deflectable basketball goals increase the likelihood of "lip out" over time as the pivot mechanism wears of a basketball which strikes the ring assembly due to increased jarring and wobble of the ring assembly. The varying degree to which the enhanced "lip out" phenomenon occurs with wear becomes a measure of whether basketball players like or dislike the deflectable basketball goal. In many cases latch mechanisms are used to attempt to overcome the effect of vibration of the ring assembly when struck by a basketball. However, the latches inherently lead to abruptness in the transfer of load to the basketball backboard when the ring assembly springs back.
The most significant problem with prior art deflectable and break-away basketball goals is that due to the orientation of their return springs there is an abrupt transfer of load on the goal, such as by players performing a "slam dunk". This abrupt transfer of load tends to defeat the very purpose the deflectable and break-away basketball goals were developed--namely to reduce the impact of the load transference experienced by the basketball backboard.